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The invention disclosed herein relates to cooperative computing environments and information retrieval and management methods and systems. More particularly, the present invention relates to methods and systems for capturing and generating useful information about a user""s access and use of data on a computer system, such as in the form of documents stored on remote servers, and making such useful information available to others.
Computer systems such as organizational networks, database systems and the Internet, provide a wealth of information to users. However, users must know how to find the information they want. Indeed, searching for specific information on a desired subject of interest is often a difficult and tedious process that is usually aided by the user""s existing knowledge of or expertise in the subject. This is particularly true in the relatively unstructured environment of the Internet.
Using the world wide web, for example, a user might begin a search for desired information by entering a keyword query through a search engine, and then follow hyperlinks contained in the web documents to move from one document to another until the desired information is found. Since keyword searches are typically unreliable and do not immediately produce directly relevant results, users are often required to browse through a number of documents until some directly relevant information is found. Expertise in a subject usually helps users formulate better keyword searches and recognize the relevance of the various results found.
Moreover, particular documents usually provide only part of the specific information desired, and thus users must often access a number of such documents until a complete set of useful information is compiled from the various documents. During this process, users also make frequent use of navigational commands offered by the user""s web browser program, such as the BACK and FORWARD commands and the history or GO list to view documents previously accessed, and the HOME command to navigate to a home page in relation to a particular page found.
If the desired information is not found after a while, the user frequently restarts the search process by jumping to a new, unrelated resource such as the original or another search engine, an index file, or a known document which may have helped the user in the past in related searches. This jump is usually performed by manual entry of the address of the new resource, such as the uniform resource locator (URL) in the case of the web. Alternatively, if the user previously visited the resource and stored its URL as a bookmark on the browser, the user can jump to the new resource by selecting the bookmark. Of course, the user may get distracted during the search process by a hyperlink to another document which is completely unrelated to the search, or the user may select an active advertisement to pursue other information before returning to the thread of the search.
Thus, by the time a user finds a number of documents which contain the desired information, the search process has likely led the user through a path of numerous documents accessed in many different ways depending upon the user""s judgment as to which way would bring the user closer to the desired end result.
Having now expended time and effort to compile this useful set of documents, the user is apt to want to capture this set both for the user""s own later use as well as for use by others. Several software programs allow users to store a path of a series of documents as the user browses the documents. However, this path will likely include a number of documents which are unrelated to the search process or are otherwise unhelpful, as explained above. Those programs that allow users to edit their paths still require substantial manual effort and judgment on the part of the user. Moreover, other users have no way of finding paths or sequences of documents which relate to specific topics or which were created by specific users or by users with specific areas of expertise. Later users thus can not take advantage of the time and expertise of the first user in performing the search and browsing through numerous documents to find those that are truly relevant and helpful.
There is therefore a need for powerful tools and methods that capture a user""s browsing history and automatically generate a set of useful documents and resources from this history for the user""s later use as well as use by others.
It is an object of the present invention to solve the problems described above with existing document browsing systems.
It is another object of the present invention to allow a broad range of users to obtain the benefit of the expertise of experts as expressed through the experts"" access and use of documents.
It is another object of the present invention to automatically parse document browser trails or paths into sequences of documents which are related by a common topic.
It is another object of the present invention to facilitate the use of the distributed expertise within an organization by making available traces of experts"" browsing and searching behavior.
It is another object of the present invention to help users find documents that someone with expertise in a particular field has already read.
It is another object of the present invention to account for a user""s method of accessing documents in determining how to group together sets of related documents.
Some of the above and other objects are achieved by a method and system for conveying expertise of a first user of a computer system to one or more second users of the computer system. The computer system stores a plurality of documents usable by the first and second users. The system may be a single computer, such as a personal computer accessible by a number of users, or may be a network of computers arranged in a client/server or related architecture. In a network environment, the documents would be stored on a server and usable by the first and second users through requests for the documents from individual client computers.
The method involves capturing information regarding a sequence of documents used by the first user on the computer system and associating a plurality of content areas with a plurality of sets of documents in the sequence based on the captured information. The second user is then allowed to select one of the content areas, and the set of documents associated with the selected content area is provided to the second user, possibly in the same sequence in which the documents were browsed by the first user.
The first user""s information may be captured by monitoring the first user""s activities and storing the desired information in a log file. The desired information includes an identifier of each document, such as a URL in the case of the Web, or database names and fields in the case of documents stored in server databases such as in the LOTUS NOTES↓ groupware system available from Lotus Development Corporation of Cambridge, Mass. In some embodiments, the desired information which is captured for each document also includes the method by which the document was accessed by the first user, e.g., by direct entry of the identifier such as the URL, selection of a stored bookmark, activation of a hyperlink from a prior document or from an external application such as electronic mail, or by navigation to the document through browser commands. The particular method used to access the document may then be considered in the decision process involved in parsing the entire document browse sequence into subsequences or clusters, on the theory that the method used to access the document reflects the first user""s intention to continue along the same content trail, such as by activating a hyperlink, or to begin a new trail such as by selecting a stored bookmark.
In some embodiments, the method is implemented in one or more software programs stored on one or more computer readable media, such as magnetic or optical data storage devices, and executing on one or more computers to thereby cause the computers to perform the method. When used in a network environment, the method may be performed by two or more distinct computer programs residing on separate computers. For example, the step of capturing information regarding the first user""s activities may be performed by a program residing on a client computer used by the first user, while the step of allowing second users to select a content area or label may be performed by a second program executing on a server centrally accessible by the first and second users.
In one embodiment, the method involves storing the information-browsing paths and patterns of content experts, and then using paths and patterns to help others who are browsing or searching in similar areas. More precisely, a browse path is the trail of documents opened or any other informational resources used to locate, view, navigate, or create documents, including queries and results. The system provides three ways to leverage expert browse paths:
1. If the second user knows a particular person with relevant expertise, the second user can explicitly specify that the system should provide access to that person""s browse paths that are relevant to the query.
2. The second user can ask for the system to identify a ranked list of those with knowledge that appears relevant to current information needs and proceed as in (1).
3. The second user can ask the system to return browse paths of all experts relevant to a specific query, sorted by expert. The user can then either follow a particular expert""s paths or can browse all of the paths.
Some of the above and other objects are achieved by a method for conveying expertise of a plurality of first users of a computer system to one or more second users of the computer system, the computer system storing a plurality of documents usable by the first and second users. The method involves capturing information regarding a sequence of documents used by each of the first users on the computer system, storing the captured information regarding each sequence of documents in association with the first user, allowing a second user to select one of the first users, and providing the sequence of documents associated with a selected first user to the second user.